replacements
by Kuruk
Summary: Green grapples with his abandonment issues. Ethan struggles with denial. Together, they learn to deal. — Green/Ethan.


_Notes: Because there literally isn't enough with these two and I wanted to prod at Green's (rather obvious) abandonment issues for a while. I hope you enjoy this piece!_

_Characters / Pairings: Green/Ethan, Daisy. Mentions of Red, Leaf and Lyra._

_Universe: Games. Post G/S/C, HG/SS._

_Warnings: language, mild sexual implications, mild violence._

_Disclaimer: I do not own _Pokémon, _nor do I stand to profit from this in any form. All mistakes are my own._

* * *

><p><em><strong>replacements<strong>_

The worst part about being a doormat is that, after everything's been said and done, you just have to deal with the fact that the people you've so devoted yourself to don't feel particularly indebted to you at all.

To be perfectly honest, Green doesn't even know what he was expecting from them. What he does know, though, is that it was a hell of a lot more than coming back home one day to an empty apartment. After three years of climbing that godforsaken mountain and making his apartment available as a crash pad at all hours, he expected them to – hell, why even entertain the thought?

So Green deals with it — he has always been the stationary vertex of their triangular dynamic, often forgotten, lest needed for his inherent stability. He's been used to not getting what he wants since he was five-years-old and his parents decided to drop him and his sister off at Pallet Town for an indefinite stay at their grandfather's house while they worked on their marital problems, since his grandfather called his best friend a prodigy and said best friend snatched the Championship from him less than ten minutes after he'd taken it himself. Red and Leaf leaving (and finding each other), well, that's just the next disappointment in a long line of them. No big deal.

At least that's what Green tells himself. The thing is, though, that after pining for his best friends for so long, they've left an empty place in his once crowded apartment, an empty place in his chest. The cacophony that had come to define his life in recent months (Leaf's incessant snarks, Red's _Discovery Channel _specials) has been disrupted, and without them, he can't seem to create a rhythm for a symphony of his own composing.

On the occasions that Daisy visits, she gives him knowing looks and says everything short of _you need to move on_. Between the two of them, Daisy has always been the better adjusted, settling easily into Pallet Town life and circumventing her abandonment issues by adopting their grandfather as a surrogate father figure. You can't tell that she's had issues just by looking at her, seeing as how she's happily married in the idyllically contented sort of way. He's glad for her, but he refrains himself from calling her on her bluff.

Daisy was always about putting up appearances to keep everyone else at ease; Green just never had the patience for it.

After all, Green thinks, better is fine but perfect, well, that's the best of all, isn't it?

— . . . —

Ethan comes over on Sunday mornings, skulking into his apartment like a bratty child and throwing himself onto the couch like he owns it while Green is still attempting to rub the crustiness of sleep out of his eyes. Both like and unlike his predecessor, the Champion has chosen to avoid setting up shop at the Indigo Plateau, so he has nothing better to do but retrace the steps he'd taken throughout his journey. This retracing brings him to Green every Sunday, and the kid fills the silence by talking about attractive women while eying Green a little hungrily out of the corners of his eyes.

He doesn't know why he allows this habitual agreement to come about, but he supposes that it has something to do with a long-suppressed need to reach out and touch another human being. Ethan is far too insecure to call it for what it is, let alone a relationship, but Green has gone beyond the point of wanting someone for himself and has arrived at the stage of just wanting a body there, so he indulges Ethan's need for reassurance, if only because it keeps him coming.

In retrospect, Green supposes that Ethan is a poor choice to finally vent his physical desires on, that there are others that could give him all that Ethan is giving and more. But Ethan is equally inexperienced (despite his boastings of past exploits), and that, in addition to his age, makes Green feel secure and in control. Besides, the way he tends to snark at him to break their quiet moments, and the way his jet black bangs fall in front of his unusually colored eyes, belying great talent – well, Green finds all the reason to keep this going after he remembers that.

The first time it happened had coalesced out of nowhere. One minute Green had been wondering how exactly to get him out of his apartment and the next Ethan was kissing him, demanding and too rough and _starving_, and it had taken Green a few moments of stunned immobility to finally react, kissing back in the stunted manner of a man who has gone his whole adolescence without a first kiss.

"Have you ever done this before?" Green had asked when they made it to his bedroom, slightly breathless.

"Y-yeah," Ethan had replied, cheeks red and voice cracking, "Plenty of times. Only with chicks, though." Instead of calling him out on his lie, Green had pulled him into another kiss that was too much teeth.

Afterwards, they had lain in bed out of sheer exhaustion, Ethan's warm face nestled on Green's shoulder, breathing erratic and his body so tense he would occasionally give an involuntary shudder. Green remembers thinking how similar Ethan was to his eleven-year-old self before his final defeat at Red's hands, recalls thinking that he might still have been like Ethan still is at sixteen (arrogant and full of himself) if he had half his talent.

"Feel any different?" Green had asked.

And because Ethan's guard always falls in moments like that one, he had replied honestly. "Sort of, yeah…"

Green also remembers wondering who Ethan's ghost is. He refrained from doing so, however, because if he had, Ethan would probably ask about his.

— . . . —

After mornings and afternoons spent in the apartment, they head over to the gym to have a battle in the evenings. Each time they do, Green can see how much Ethan has improved in just seven days' time. His progress, Green decides, is nowhere near as astounding as Red's was, but seeing as how Ethan surpassed Red's level without training for three years in harsh conditions, he supposes that his potential is maybe even more extraordinary than Red's.

Either way, Ethan keeps drawing away from Green as a trainer by exponential increments, and while it had taken him ten minutes to defeat the Viridian Gym Leader when he first claimed the badge, his new record is at five minutes and thirty-two seconds.

"Why do you keep battling me?" Green demands. Ethan has just taken out five of his pokémon with just two of his, and Green is frustrated with his inability to take out more than two of Ethan's pokémon (if he's lucky). "You're obviously on a whole other level than I am. Wouldn't you rather pick on someone your own size?"

Ethan just scuffs his sneaker against the polished gym floor, shrugs with seemingly careless abandon. "I guess I just like kicking your ass too much." He smirks in that arrogant manner of his and Typhlosion roars, flames exploding from his back.

Green snarls in response, pulling at Eevee's poké ball and tossing it into the ring. "We'll see about that!"

Much to Green's satisfaction, Eevee manages to take out three of Ethan's pokémon before his Ampharos lands a thunder punch that knocks her out cold. Even though the match ended in his usual defeat, Green is still the one smirking at the end of it, Ethan's face marred by disbelief – an uncommon expression to grace his handsome face, to be sure.

After their battles, they part ways, Ethan turning just the slightest bit pink as he glances from side to side warily before leaning in to give him a farewell kiss. He always hesitates at the last second though, and Green, who by this point can hardly stand to look at Ethan anymore, does not push the boy's boundaries. Instead, he lets Ethan pull back, put on a shit-eating grin, and fly away on his Skarmory. Sometimes he loudly proclaims that he's off to see his girlfriend, though at that time of night, no one is around to need fooling.

— . . . —

His challengers begin blurring into a monochrome procession of unimaginative strategies and predictable pokémon. Even though Green is light-years behind trainers like Red and Ethan, Red and Ethan aren't exactly the standard for regular trainers. When compared to the _real_ standard, Green is light-years ahead... If anything, those two are the anomalies – gods among pokémon trainers, something that comes along only once or twice a generation. He may not possess the same instinctual connection to pokémon that they do, but Green and his team have worked their way to where they are now, and if they're gods, then hell, Green is a fucking king. He supposes, then, that his tireless drive to push his limits as far as he possibly can is the cause of his marked lack of satisfaction from his job.

Green wouldn't go as far as to say that Ethan is the only splash of color in his otherwise humdrum existence; that it just so happens that his gold-tinted eyes are the most vibrant things he sees during the course of a week.

— . . . —

"Does it bother you?" Ethan asks.

The sun is shining just so through the kitchen window, making Ethan's eyes shine more than usual when he looks back to give him a questioning glance. When Ethan just stares back, Green sighs and returns to washing the dishes.

"Does what bother me?"

"You know," Ethan says, scratching at the back of his head. "Not being the best."

Green snorts. "What gave you the impression that I care about that?" he has to make an effort to stop himself from tacking on 'anymore' to the end of that question.

"Well, you were the Champ once yourself, weren't you?"

It doesn't feel that way to Green – a few minutes hardly qualifies as a reign as Pokémon League Champion. Seeing as how he was entered into the Hall of Fame, though, he supposes that he actually was.

"Yeah," Green says, scrubbing particularly viciously at a stain, eyes narrowed in concentration. "So what?"

"So…" Ethan begins, voice taking on a note of annoyance. "If anyone took _my_ title, I would work my ass off to take it back… _especially_ if it was to my rival."

"Yeah, well," Green says, just a tad venomously. "The Champion wasn't exactly around to allow me a rematch…"

"You could've climbed the mountain," Ethan says petulantly. Green can imagine the frown he's wearing when he says this. In many ways, Ethan doesn't realize that the standards to which he holds himself cannot be applied realistically to anyone else. Ethan progresses by leaps and bounds; other trainers crawl their way toward decency. Though maybe this is what makes him noble – that despite his cockiness, he has an unfailing belief in the ability of other people to reach his level, if they would only try hard enough.

It would be sort of magnanimous of him, Green thinks, if it wasn't so annoyingly naïve.

"Sometimes," Green says tiredly, reaching for the next plate and plopping it into the sink. "There's more to life than just winning all the time."

"Yeah," Ethan says mockingly, imperiously. "That's just what you tell losers to make them feel better about themselves…"

Green laughs bitterly. "Losers? Careful Champ… no matter how good you are, there's always someone better than you, out there."

"Maybe," Ethan admits. "But that doesn't mean that if my pokémon and I train our asses off we can't catch up."

He loses his patience, slamming the plate down into the sink (thank God it's plastic). "What are you trying to say, Ethan?" he hisses, hands gripping the edge of the counter, knuckles white. "That I'm a washed-up has-been that you're embarrassed to be seen around?"

Ethan groans. "No! Do you think I would… would…" he struggles for the words. "Hang around with you if I did?"

"Then _what_?"

The sound of Ethan's chair screeching against the tile punctuates the tense atmosphere cloying about the kitchen. Green finally turns around to face Ethan and finds him a few inches away. Surprised, he tries to stumble backward, only to run into the counter, the feel of water spreading across his t-shirt, sending a chill down his spine.

Ethan is breathing hard, hands curled into fists. "I… I just…" He can't find the words (he never can), so he tries to show him, leaning in close, hands gripping the counter on either side of Green. When he can feel Ethan's breath on his face, Green lifts his hands and pushes him away. Ethan's eyes are wide as he stumbles back, arms flailing as he knocks into the kitchen table. They hold each other's eyes, forest green and gold, and then Ethan scowls, his pride wounded.

"You don't get to do this," Green hisses. In the background, the water keeps running, eclipsing the sound of their heavy breathing. "You don't get to come over here every week and fuck with me like this."

"Whatever, Green," Ethan clips, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm tired of this. You're such an asshole, sometimes."

"And you're an immature brat," Green snaps back as Ethan storms out of the kitchen, towards the front door. He peels himself off the counter, gives chase. "You think just because you're undefeated it makes you the best? Mark my words, kid: you'll get yours!"

But Ethan has already slammed the door, leaving Green's words to echo off the walls. He stands there, in his empty apartment, catching his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists.

In the kitchen, the sink overflows.

— . . . —

Green spends his Sundays alone, after that.

After two weeks of this, he starts opening the gym to avoid the emptiness in his apartment, the memories of Red and Leaf and Ethan coming together to plague him all at once. His gym trainers learn to stay out of his way, already annoyed as it is after having their only day off taken from them. Sure enough, challengers seem to get the message, too (he tends to send Eevee out first and let her go to town with the challengers, wiping the floor with them in no time at all), staying at the Pokémon Center for the weekend before challenging him on Monday.

It doesn't make any difference – they end up losing then, too.

— . . . —

"You're not happy," Daisy tells him one day over the brim of her mug.

They are sitting at the Green's kitchen table, drinking tea, and Green can't get Ethan out of his head. It doesn't help that Daisy happens to be sitting in the chair Ethan had been sitting in the last time he was over. It must have shown on his face, and he silently berates himself for not taking better care to hide his facial expression from his ever-observant sister.

"I've always been this way," Green says before taking a sip of his tea, feels the bitter liquid scald his throat. "I don't know why you chose today to point out the obvious, sis."

"For a few weeks you were actually doing a little better," Daisy points out softly, stirring some more honey into her tea. "It was like the clock had been turned back and you were a little kid again, playing tag with your friends and dreaming of being a Pokémon Master…"

Green groans, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Do you always have to make that comparison?"

She giggles softly. "It was a nice time for us, Green. You were happy with your new friends, the situation with grandpa was starting to feel normal," she sighs into her cup, and tendrils of steam curl around her face. "It would have been nice if things had stayed that simple…"

He watches her sit at his kitchen table drinking tea and he wonders if this is what having a sister feels like. He used to resent Daisy for trying to fill the gaping void his parents had left behind, acting more like a worried mother than an older sister, but now that he has grown up (in more ways than one), their relationship has settled into something comfortable. They are even ground, now – new earth the two of them have discovered.

"Are _you_ happy?" he asks quietly.

She blinks at him, clearly caught off guard the question. "Well," she begins, and her frown lines become visible (where did all the time go? Green still wonders). "I don't like that word. It's… what's the term for that…? Ah! It's a loaded question."

"How so?"

"Well… not being happy is seen as something bad. But, you know what? If there's one thing I've learned, it's that being happy all the time is pretty much impossible. They key is to aim for contentedness – happiness comes on its own."

Green stares at her for a moment that seems to go on and on.

Daisy smiles a very self-satisfied smile. "Well," she says, hiding her mouth behind her mug. "I didn't know that I had the ability to wow my _genius_ little brother into silence."

He splutters for a moment, scowls at her resulting laugh.

Daisy takes her leave an hour before the sun sets, leaving him with a kiss on the forehead and a mind full of thoughts. All in all, both things make him feel like a child all over again.

— . . . —

When he comes home from work the next evening, he finds Ethan sitting in the hallway of his apartment building, a determined sort of expression on his face. Green freezes at the sight of him, and Ethan goes a little pink when he stares for too long.

"W-what?" Ethan demands. He tries to sound disgruntled, but it comes out sounding rather childlike instead.

"It's Tuesday," Green tells him cautiously.

Ethan scowls, though it's more in bewilderment than resentment. "So?"

He considers telling him just how strange it is that it isn't Sunday, but thinks better of it. Instead, he smiles softly and makes his way past Ethan and unlocks his front door. When it swings open, he gives the kid a look he hopes doesn't seem _too_ fond.

"Nothing," Green says, voice the softest it has ever been when addressing him. "Are you coming in?"

It only takes Ethan a few seconds before he pushes himself off the floor and makes his way into the apartment. On his way, he brushes past Green, the collision rough and welcome – contact after so long. Still smiling, Green shuts the door behind them.

They don't talk about the argument save for when, while watching TV and still sitting at enough of a distance away from each other to suggest discomfort, Ethan had looked at Green and said: "I don't think you're a loser."

In retrospect, Green realizes that a lot more could have been said. But he has spent most of his life talking to a boy who may as well be mute and a girl who expressed herself with sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood. After so much time, Green is accustomed to reading between the lines and understanding the meaning of silence, how to decipher the things left unsaid. So he just sighs and closes the space between them, throwing an arm around the kid and tangling his fingers in his hair.

"I know."

That night, Ethan stays over for the first time. The next morning, he lingers in bed and moans when Green gets up for work, hands grasping at his wrists. "Too early," Ethan groans, voice heavy with sleep. "Stay. Just a little while longer."

Green just sighs an exasperated-but-not-really sigh and acquiesces, easing himself back into bed. "Okay." Truthfully, he doesn't really intend to leave anymore.

A day off never hurt anyone, after all.

— . . . —

It isn't perfect. No, not by a longshot.

Ethan is simultaneously needy and desperate for his own space. They are both prideful and cocky, but Green remembers what it is like to be on top of the world (even if it was for the briefest of moments), and his is a battered sort of pride, one that is capable of yielding to another when the need arises. Ethan's is, at times, uncompromising, but as days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months, he learns the steady give-and-take of compromise, of how to be comfortable with Green in his space, how to shake off the paranoia that used to keep him from denying what they are. He still doesn't say it, but he grudgingly deems it a 'thing' in which he is 'pretty involved in, okay?', and Green thinks that maybe this is progress.

He still talks about girls reverently, though, particularly about a childhood friend with a marill, and Green watches him when he does and knows that this Lyra person is his ghost like Leaf and Red are his. So he humors him, sometimes even brings home videos that Ethan is still too young to check out from the video store himself. Green sits through the hour or so of bad acting and obviously and poorly done boob jobs with him, if only because Ethan tends to be exceedingly generous afterwards when he does.

No, definitely not perfect. Not yet, maybe not ever. But for now, this is enough. Together, they will live out those long stretches of contentedness and cherish those moments of happiness.

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><p><em>AN: I'm not exactly sure about how this came about. I started out wanting to write arrogant!Ethan/Gold, and then it sort of combined with my desire to write Green so that he doesn't end up with either Red or Leaf (or both, haha). This was the result._

_Thanks go out to the readers – thank you for taking the time to read this piece! Reviews and feedback are always appreciated!_

_I hope you enjoyed it!_

_EDIT: Fixed some issues here and there._


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